Serene Visage
by Cerulean-Vector
Summary: Two souls with similar destinies meet in an unexpected encounter. On the run, the two journey together through several lands of peace and strife, determined to escape their fate. This is one of those journeys...


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Soulcalibur. This is a fan-made project.

**Author's Note:** This fanfic is actually a Christmas gift I made for a close friend of mine. I was planning on letting her keep the story as a private gift, but when asked, she said she didn't mind it being posted to the public. So, here we are, my first submission to FF net.

This is my second ff made so far. The first one was, again, a gift for someone, but it was kept private. Since this is a very early work of mine, I welcome any critique you may have. I always aspire to improve and keep an open mind, so suggest anything you may wish.

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><p><em><strong>Serene Visage<strong>_

All is white. All is silent. All is desolate and unforgiving. In a faraway plain engulfed in snow, a blizzard ravages the cold wasteland, not a trace of life emanating aside from two lone silhouettes. A man and a woman, struggling to traverse the unrelentingly frigid winds and snow, with the man leading ahead of the woman. However, for reasons unknown, she appears to be keeping her distance.

The man cuts a mysterious, yet striking, figure. He is wrapped in a long, dark and heavy brown fur coat. The man keeps the coat tight around his body, fighting off the forceful gusts to keep himself warm. Drafts from the winds lift the lower part of the coat, exposing his leather pants and boots. His black hair, silver-tipped at his bangs, is continuously windswept backward. The woman behind him follows suit. She is a beautiful young lady with prominent red eyes and curled white hair, sporting an unfeeling and distant expression. The woman seems to be only wearing a dress, gothic in nature, along with stockings, heels, and a hooded cape, all sporting roses and purple/aubergine colors. On her right hand, long and armored claws protrude from her fingers, although slightly rusted. The woman is gripping her hood tight with her left hand, her right tucked under the arm. The dark dress offers little protection against the freezing temperatures and gales, yet she looks unfazed. Both of them are covered with snow from the ongoing blizzard.

Crunching sounds can be heard under their feet as the pair trudge on through the bleak, white desert of snow. Clouds of vapor increasingly emit from the two's mouths, leaving puffs of smoke to drift behind them and fade helplessly into the air. The man occasionally looks back behind him to check on his companion, but all she does is look down.

The woman has gone through much turmoil, along with her male companion. She has been wandering the lands as a nomad with amnesia. She's a fortune teller, revealing to various citizens their fortunes, foreseeing the cold, harsh truths for each individual's soul. Due to her blunt honesty and lack of empathy, the public has grown to abhor her, and she has become an outcast. The absence of her memories and past life constantly haunts and hurts her. The man burdens a more tumultuous fate. Once trying to save innocents from being falsely blamed and executed in a witch hunt, his attempts were fruitless, causing assassins being sent from the organization he opposed to track him down and end his life. As for his past, it is unknown to all but himself. Not much is known about him aside from rumors and speculation. The two only managed to meet each other by chance, establishing a bond by relating to each others' distress. Due to the situation the man was in, the woman was dragged along on his run from death. The stress from the whole situation is taking its toll on the pair, the worst of it affecting the woman.

Both of them look tired and exhausted from their journey, yet they keep a steady pace. The man continues to push on, but the woman struggles to keep up. She's shaking violently from the cold and it appears the fatigue is starting to set in. Over a matter of seconds, her pace decreases bit by bit until she eventually collapses face-down into the snow.

As the man looks back once again to check on her, he notices her lying bereft on the white floor, buried in slightly and at the mercy of the snowstorm. Shocked, he quickly turns around to go pick her up, the ramming winds from behind almost knocking him over. As he nears her defenseless body, he kneels down close, lifts and turns her face-up, then holds her near his abdomen. With no hands to hold the coat, it flies open, his bare chest exposed to the cold.

"Viola? Viola, we have to keep moving. Viola!" The man shouted.

The woman, Viola, hasn't stopped shaking. She's covered with snow all across her front body and her eyes are shut tight. As the man tries to brush the snow off of her, she grips the man's left arm hard with her right hand, managing not the cut the coat with her claw. Opening her eyes, she doesn't make eye contact with the man, still remaining unfeeling toward him even when offered help.

"This is too much. I'm reaching my limit... I tell my body to walk and all it wants to do is lock up..."

"You can do this, Viola. I'll help you walk, just stay close to me. Don't stay behind like you have been, trying to handle this all alone. This land is too harsh for one person to-"

"Just stop, Z.W.E.I." she orders, dismissing his words. "I can... I can get up."

"As you say."

Viola looks up and grimaces at Z.W.E.I., then looks away again. She forcefully tries to lift herself up off the bed of snow, managing to sit up straight and catch her breath. However, her arms soon give way and she falls back onto him. Her willpower is drained, making any effort to push on pointless. All she can do is shiver.

"Viola..." Z.W.E.I. says, worried. He puts her closer to his body to subdue her tremors.

"Leave... just leave me. They're only after you. I'm of no use to you," Viola says with a shaken voice.

"Sorry, but I'm not going to leave you here to die. I didn't go out of my way to rescue you just to leave you as a corpse," he commanded.

She looks up to his blue eyes. "Z.W.E.I... listen... it's futile. I don't even want to keep going. I have no reason to live, no purpose. I can't remember anything about my life. I don't know who I am. I don't even care about other people. Nothing... nothing in my life matters to me anymore."

"What about that time we first met? That time where we found each other. Understood each other. Understood that we were both gifted and burdened with powers unnatural to the normal human being, thus having others cast us out as freaks... abominations. It seemed we were forced to walk the path of life alone... until we met each other." Z.W.E.I. paused a moment, reminiscing on the memories. "After that day, we didn't need to be alone anymore. Does it still matter? Does that still mean something to you?"

Viola averts her eyes and looks away, discouraged. She hesitates for a few moments, then speaks, "Even so... I doubt I'll ever be happy. I'll never know who I am, who I was. I'll always be viewed as an unwanted exile, forever roaming the lands chasing something I can never obtain. You... one man can't change that."

Z.W.E.I. closes his eyes and tilts his head down for a moment, then says, "...you give up too easily, Viola."

She quickly looks up again at Z.W.E.I.'s face, addled. He leans her on his leg, then starts to take off his coat.

"Z.W.E.I., what are you-"

He quickly puts a finger to her lips, gesturing to her that she needn't speak. After the coat is removed from his body, grasped and fluttering freely in the wind, he lifts up Viola and puts it under her. He then lies her on it, wrapping and tucking it around her firmly. Slowly, she starts to shiver less aggressively as she tenaciously covers the coat around herself like a blanket. It doesn't take long for the leftover snow on her body to start melting from the warmth.

"I can't say I know how you feel. That would be selfish of me. All I can say is that I've been through similar strife. People looked down on me no matter what I did, even when I tried to save innocents from their graves. Now look... I have a bunch of assassins out for my blood."

He closed his eyes and paused again, looking resentful. Viola didn't know what to say or do other than look at him mournfully.

"I was once at the point you're at now – wanting to just have it all end. I didn't want to go on living with the constant reminder that everyone either hates me or wants me dead. In fact, I was planning on ending my own life, but... then you appeared."

"You... you mean..."

"Yes."

Viola was at a loss for words. Z.W.E.I., seeing that she's not shivering anymore, then lifts her up from the legs and back, cradling her close to his chest. As he lifted her, her hood falls off her head.

"Somehow, someway, we'll get your memories back. I will make sure of it. Not only that, but also make sure that along the way, we'll make new memories of our own... a new life. And we'll make them together."

Viola simply looked at him, speechless. Z.W.E.I. then said, "That's a promise." He gave her an affectionate smile... something Viola has never witnessed before.

All of a sudden, Viola starts to take off her rusted claw. She then tosses it carelessly into the snow, landing with a soft "plop". Z.W.E.I. gives a puzzled look at the spot where she threw the claw, wondering why she threw away her only physical weapon. Before he could even think about it, Viola's soft hand graces his cheek and turns his face toward her. She simply stares into his eyes longingly, Z.W.E.I. returning her gaze. For those few moments, the world around them seemed to melt away as her crimson eyes met his azure ones. Viola then slowly wraps her arms around his neck, closes her eyes and leans in for a soft, loving kiss. Z.W.E.I. hesitates at first, but soon closes his eyes to lean in and passionately return her kiss.

Not a word was spoken between the two after that. Z.W.E.I. kept Viola in his arms and carried her for the rest of the journey. She kept him warm with her body leaned against his, with the fur coat and Z.W.E.I. himself keeping her comfortably snug. They walked to wherever their destination took them, knowing they could take on whatever came forth. As they walked off into the distance, the rusted claw from before becomes slowly swallowed up by the ivory ocean that falls endlessly from the sky. Loneliness didn't exist to them anymore.

Suddenly, the snow seemed to fall a little lighter...


End file.
